Jam Bands

I don't know that all jambands would fall that close to progressive rock, but I'm not a huge fan of genres anyway. 

It's really "okay" for a style of music not to be Prog Rock and it's really "okay" to like music that isn't Prog Rock. Prog Rock isn't some exclusive "good music" club that bands have to join before they can considered to be "good", "likeable" or "worthy".

 

Skynyrd is not a jam band; they only stretch things out by extending instrumental pieces just a tad....but if you followed Skynyrd you'll know that the solo from the night before in Philly will be the same the next night in New York.  Skynyrd didn't show "progress", more "regress" and that's where the "antithesis" crack originates.  I get the idea, but most jam bands don't even have a set list, they just let the flow take the music where it will.

Genres and labels are all fine and dandy, but my favorite bands are those that transcend genre - in fact, isn't that often how genres are created? As much as the Grateful Dead had a strong blues streak, the 20th century classical background of Phil Lesh had a huge impact. Their most proggy aspect is their use of odd times - they had a song in 11/8 by their second album, and played in odd times throughout the '70s - Lazy Lightning, King Solomon's Marbles, Estimated Prophet, the breakdown at the end of Uncle John's Band, to name a few. I do agree that they don't really fit as a prog band, but they aren't a blues band either - they're just the good ol' Grateful Dead - no genre label can contain them!

I like the idea that jam bands don't have to be prog bands but can we allow them prog-like aspects?

I also disagree that improvisation is a defining aspect of progressive rock - to me, Yes and Genesis are two of the archetypal prog bands, but they have almost zero improvisation. King Crimson is the wild card - the way that improv was an essential element of their music with Bill Buford and Jamie Muir was what set them apart for me.

All Jams are improvisation but not all improvisations are jams. The distinction is far from subtle nor is it intended as a "crack". While generalisations should be avoided wherever possible, when defining the difference between jams and improvisation you have to consider the commonest forms of each. Here "Jams" are improvised excursions from a set chord progression or groove, often in the form of extended soloing, as opposed to "Improvs" where the compositional structure of the piece, its melody, rhythm and chord progression develops organically. Of course since nothing in music is cast in stone or restrained by strict rules some jams can be wholly improvised in terms of compositional structure and progression and some non-jam improvisations can simply be soloing over a predefined backing - in those cases you have to consider the intent of the musicians from the start of the piece, not how they arrived at its conclusion.

Personally I think the case for improvisation in Progressive Rock rests on the compositional development of a track rather than how the song is used as a spring-board for extended soloing on stage. Where Yes improvised was in the studio, a track would be developed and extended from a loose arrangement of set-pieces into its final form; this arrangement was the result of planned intent and not from studio-jamming; and would then be recorded, rehearsed and taken on tour without further change. Their stage performances of these compositions, even with extended soloing, were carefully rehearsed and not jams.

Pink Floyd have been retrospectively tagged as a "Jam Band" because they developed and extended set pieces in a live setting during their early career but I see this as inaccurate. Floyd did indeed jam and there is plenty of evidence of this from live recordings of that era, but there is also evidence of non-jam improvisation. When Floyd jammed on stage you generally got a blues-jam, not an improvisation; when they improvised on stage you saw a compositional song-structure development as opposed to a jam. 

Saucerful of Secrets (the song) is a studio composition in four parts where the second part (Syncopated Pandemonium) indeed began life as a jam (as Nick's Boogie) before being incorporated into the final song in the studio; the song was then further developed on stage through improvised variations on what had been laid-down in the studio resulting from the limitations of what could and could not be played live - as a consequence of this it became less free-form and avant-garde and more melodic and rehearsed. It is worth noting here that the Pompeii version is some two minutes shorter than the studio version (not something you would expect to see in a jam, where songs invariably become longer on stage) while other live version are considerably longer as the length of individual sections were more fluid. Whether this fluidity in section length was the result of intentional jamming or on-stage improvised experimentation really depends on how those individual sections were played, the last section for example (Celestial Voices) saw the addition of extra instrumentation over a set keyboard solo (and the replacing of the studio choir voices with Gilmour's vocalisation) in what is essentially the reverse of a jam - adding a groove to a solo rather than soloing to a groove.

Another example would be "Echoes" which went through a cycle of improvised composition to studio set-piece to live version with extended improvised sections that included a rhythmic jam section for Gilmour to solo over. Contrast that to "Embryo" that developed from a 4 minute studio piece to an extended (i.e. improvised) 12 minute live piece that could be regarded as the 'definitive' version of the song's composition. In its final live performance this 12-minute version was extended by a further 15 minutes by an impromptu jam imposed on them by an equipment failure (Rick Wright's Hammond broke down) where they jammed bits of other songs into the piece while the roadies tried to rectify the fault. Since the song was dropped from the set list after this that jam cannot be seen as a further compositional development.

Producer Tom Dowd (not a band member but could be called an honourary member if there ever was one) has gone back and called At Fillmore East a fusion album. Though the idea of a genre tag for the ABB is pretty interesting because I don't think anyone in the band would actually agree on one. "Southern rock" would be the obvious choice but that doesn't really mean anything; that was just a term that the media thought up that southern rock artists typically resented. I'm pretty sure it was Dickey Betts that once said he didn't see the Allman Brothers as "southern rock" but instead a progressive rock band from the South.

I have been listening to ABB since 1969 when I graduated from high school....never saw them as fusion...especially the first 2 albums which rock pretty hard at times (Black Hearted Woman for  an example..) and are certainly bluesy through and through.....but their live work which goes into extended jamming and the instrumentals like Elizabeth Reed certainly fit the idea of 'modal and fusion'.....but even so I just don't get that idea that they are a 'jazz fusion' band.

They rock too hard and have way too much blues imho.

btw....this is the first time I have ever heard anyone discuss them in a fusion manner. None of the people who were into them at college with me or after ever thought of them that way. Just an observation.

I do agree somewhat with Betts in saying a progressive rock band from the South......though I notice they ain't on Prog Rock Archives.